


tell no tales

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, I'm Going to Be Honest I Don't Know What is Happening, Pirate Crowley (Good Omens), Pirates, Swashbuckling Slow Burn, Treasure island AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: Aziraphale Fell (for that was his name) has lived and worked for the past eleven years at the Hawkins Inn, under the odd Miss Tracey. He longs of nothing more than to tell a truly great story.He perhaps gets more than he bargained for when a mysterious, buzzing figure crashed into the inn one night with a deadly message for one of the inn's more eccentric residents.Dead men tell no tales.Or: aGood OmensTreasure Island AU. Avast!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	tell no tales

_Once Upon a Time…_

Aziraphale brought the quill to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Once Upon a Time… what? The young man closed his sea-gray eyes and pictured wondrous things; dragons and mermaids and chests of treasure and beautiful princesses and handsomer princes and anything else that made up a life worth living.

Anything but dirty tankards and unswept floors.

“Once Upon a Time,” he murmured to himself, bringing the tip of the quill down to the scrap of paper before him. 

Fantastic images swirled through his brain, but no words worthy enough to match them spilled forth from his quill. He huffed in frustration, running ink-stained fingers through his bright white hair. It was really the most remarkable thing about him, that hair. Miss Tracey was always trying to convince him his hair was something magic.

“Touched by the angels you were, boy,” she’d say, placing a reverent, nearly suspicious ring-laden hand upon his shoulder.

Aziraphale Fell, for that was his name, didn’t feel particularly touched by angels. He felt about as far away from Heaven as a person could possibly get. 

He sighed and set the quill down upon the paper, feeling defeated. He looked out the small window of his ramshackle bedroom (just a bed and a three-legged table that served as his writing desk) and slipped his hand into his pocket. He wrapped soft but for washing dishes fingers carefully around his own most treasured possession.

His mother’s compass.

_“Be good now, Aziraphale,” she tucked her fingers beneath his tear-stained chin when she dropped him off at Tracey’s._

_“But where are you going, Mama?” Aziraphale the Child wept. She was Everything to him. She was the sea and the stars and every good song._

_“I’m off to bring you a story, my lad,” she replied with an adventurous twinkle in her eye._

And that was all he’d ever known. He’d given up asking Tracey for any details. If she knew, she wasn’t going to tell him. Eleven years that felt like six thousand and it was all he knew:

_“I’m off to bring you a story.”_

Aziraphale was a clever young man. He knew that writing his own great story wouldn’t magically bring his mother back. But, deep in his bones, he sort of hoped if he could come up with one himself, maybe she wouldn’t have to keep searching for him.

“Aziraphale!!”

There was a loud banging at his door. Aziraphale squeezed the compass for luck before tucking his bit of paper into the pocket alongside it. He sprang to his feet and walked to his door, opening it up to discover a particularly aggravated-looking Anathema.

“Hello,” he said, pleasantly, mostly because he was a pleasant person, but also because he knew a little how it would drive Anathema mad.

“What are you doing up here?!” she stamped her foot, furiously. “It’s a nightmare downstairs! Full to the brim and damn Shadwell’s back holding court! I need you!”

“I need you first,” Aziraphale argued, holding out his hand to her.

Anathema rolled her eyes. “I’m not your personal witch, you know.”

“Read my palm, Anathema, please?” he begged.

Anathema was as much a mystery as anyone else who’d come to call the Hawkins Inn home. Alongside Aziraphale, she helped Miss Tracey keep the place running in exchange for room and board. But at night, when the moon was high and there was a bit of ale flowing through her veins, she told the travellers’ fortunes. 

Aziraphale loved her dearly.

“Your palm is the same as it was yesterday, Az,” Anathema shook her head at him, her magnificent dark tresses flowing over her shoulders.

“What about this, then?” Aziraphale pivoted eagerly, scrambling back into his room to pluck the chipped mug off his “desk.” He downed its cold contents immediately before holding it out to her. 

She raised a pitying eyebrow at him before taking the cup away and looking down at the tea leaves. Aziraphale knew he was a bit annoying when it came to his fascination with Anathema’s gifts, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t even need specifics.

He just wanted to know if he had any future at all.

“Hmm,” Anathema hummed as she turned the cup this way and that. “Looks a bit like a snake if you ask me.”

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “A snake? Awful creatures.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Anathema countered sagely. “In the leaves, a snake is a sign of gaining wisdom through experience.”

“What sort of experience?” Aziraphale wanted to know.

“Tonight, listening to Shadwell drone on and on, I’m afraid to report,” Anathema sighed. “Come on, Az. We’ve got work to do.”

Aziraphale nodded and followed her down the stairs for dinner service, and wondered all night of wise serpents and what they might have to teach him. 

***

The candles were burning low and only a handful of patrons remained at the Hawkins Inn, nursing the last dregs of their drinks before retiring to their rooms. Aziraphale’s fingers itched. He wanted to get back upstairs to return to his paper and his quill, but old Shadwell was in rare form.

“Harlot!” he crowed to Miss Tracey. “Another rum!”

“Right away, Mr. Shadwell,” Tracey cooed kindly, bustling off to fill the order. 

Miss Tracey was something of a collector and her trade was in misfits. The Hawkins Inn was a home, both temporary and permanent, to a regular menagerie of loons, oddballs, and eccentrics. None moreso than Sergeant Shadwell. Oh, he claimed to be the sole member of some mysterious and proud army, roaming the ocean and ridding the Queen’s countries of sirens and selkies and every kind of horrid sea-witch. Aziraphale had been most eager to speak to him at first, hoping to find inspiration for an excellent story, but…

Well.

Rum addles even the clearest of heads.

“Lassie!” Shadwell barked at Anathema. “How many feet have you got? Let me see ‘em!”

Anathema had very little patience with Shadwell, but a great deal of joy at stoking his confusion. She gasped and lifted her skirts, revealing just one leg. 

“Goodness gracious, Sergeant Shadwell! I must be a sea-witch after all! Whatever do I do?”

However to solve a problem like a sea-witch never revealed itself. In his shock and fury, Shadwell flailed and sent his freshly arrived rum spilling everywhere. Aziraphale bit back a sigh. He felt he’d been mopping all night long.

Anathema smiled smugly and set down her other foot, gracefully transitioning into a defiant little two-step. Shadwell gaped at her and Aziraphale smiled.

“Perhaps it’s time for bed now, Sergeant?” Aziraphale asked kindly as he went to wipe down the soaked table.

“You listen to me, laddie,” Shadwell grumbled, gripping Aziraphale’s sleeve fiercely and tugging him closer. “Beware a sea-witch in all her forms, but be especially wary of them that buzzes.”

“Buzzes, Sergeant?” Aziraphale gently freed himself from Shadwell’s grip and went to loop an arm under the man’s, attempting to hoist him to his unsteady feet.

“Ay, laddie,” Shadwell’s eyes darkened. “Part human, part fly, and all mean. You see ‘em, you run far, do you hear me?”

“Of course, Sergeant,” Aziraphale patted him on the back, steering him now to the staircase.

“All of you!” Shadwell suddenly cried, whirling out of Aziraphale’s arms and addressing the remnants of the inn. “Beware them that buzzes! When the Fly circles you, Death isn’t far behind!”

He hiccuped then, rather undercutting the drama of the moment.

“Off to bed you get, Mr. Shadwell,” Miss Tracey shuffled over now, resplendent as always in the brightest colors Aziraphale had ever seen. He didn’t know where she got them. He sometimes wondered if Miss Tracey was actually a fairy princess from another realm, moonlighting in a dingy old inn due to some terrible curse. When he’d first posited that to her as a child, she just laughed and ruffled up his hair.

“Such an imagination on you, our angel boy,” she’d say. “That’s going to take you places someday.”

So far it had just taken him up and down the stairs of the inn, over and over, day in and day out, cleaning and being gentle with drunkards and looking out his little window, pretending he could smell the sea.

Shadwell hiccuped again and wobbled his way up the stairs. Miss Tracey turned to Aziraphale and brought her hands up to his shoulders.

“And off to bed with you, too, Mr. Fell,” she clucked.

“Of course, Miss Tracey,” Aziraphale agreed immediately.

“No staying up until dawn writing now.”

“Of course not,” he lied.

She sighed at him, squeezing his shoulders. “One day, Az. One day, my dear.”

She said that to him often and Aziraphale never asked for clarification. He didn’t want to be wrong. One day what? One day his mother would return? One day he’d write the greatest story humanity had ever read? One day he’d get far, far away from the inn and live a real life? 

Best not to speculate.

Aziraphale was squeezing in between the now empty tables, blowing out the dying candles, when the front door crashed violently open. Anathema groaned. 

“We’re all dry up tonight!” she shouted. “Come back tomorrow!”

“I’m not here for a drink, girl,” came a voice that sent chills down Aziraphale’s spine. He’d never heard a voice like that before. It didn’t sound completely human.

The small figure stepped through the doors, dark hair and a red travelling cloak. Aziraphale stood easily a head above them and so couldn’t place exactly why he felt so frightened. Not that Aziraphale’s size had ever really meant much to him. When it came time to throw unruly guests out of the inn, Anathema was always called for. Aziraphale had reverence for all living things, even rowdy drunks.

“Sergeant Shadwell!” the mysterious figure shouted, and there it was again: something warped in their speech. Almost like- Aziraphale gulped at his own stupidity- almost like buzzing. 

“He’s gone to bed for the night,” Anathema, never afraid, told them as she continued to collect mugs and tankards. “Again, come back tomorrow.”

They sneered at her before turning their piercing eyes on Aziraphale. He tried not to shudder at the act.

“Take a message, boy,” they said, striding quickly forward. Before Aziraphale could protest or panic or run away, something was being placed firmly into the palm of his hand. With a swirl of the red cape, the strange creature turned back around and disappeared from the inn.

“Whatever is all the fuss, my dears?” Miss Tracey had wandered back into the room.

“Someone’s sent a note for Shadwell,” Aziraphale explained, dreading strangely the mere scrap of paper in his fist. He didn’t want to look at it. Suspected it was something awful.

(Which, of course, it was.)

“Let me see, dear,” Miss Tracey extended a glittering hand to Aziraphale. He was grateful to rid himself of the paper. Miss Tracey unfolded it- it was hardly the size of a playing card-

Miss Tracey unfolded it.

And screamed.

“Tracey!” Anathema and Aziraphale ran to her as she dropped into the nearest seat, bringing a hand up to her mouth, eyes wide with terror.

“It can’t be…” she gasped.

“What is it, Miss Tracey?” Anathema asked.

But Miss Tracey barely seemed to register their presences as her shoulders heaved in a panic. Aziraphale, knowing only one way to cope with any sort of unpleasantness, was on his way to fix a cup of tea when a voice a the staircase stopped him:

“It’s them, ain’t it, jezebel?”

“Sergeant Shadwell!” Anathema snapped. “It’s time for bed!”

But Miss Tracey rose to her feet as if in a trance, eyes locked on the shadowy figure of Shadwell on the stairs. Aziaphale hurried back into the room and, without knowing why, gripped Anathema’s hand tightly.

“When the Fly circles you,” Miss Tracey whispered.

“Death isn’t far behind,” Shadwell nodded, grimly.

He held out a hand to Miss Tracey.

“Let me see it, jezebel.”

“No,” Miss Tracey’s voice was low and hoarse.

“It’s mine, dammit!”

“We had an agreement, Mr. Shadwell!”

And Aziraphale had a thousand questions, his heart beating wildly in his chest. What was on the piece of paper? Who was the Them That Buzzes, if that had really been them? What was the agreement between Tracey and Shadwell? 

More quietly, but always, always: Where is my mother?

He opened his mouth to speak just as a brick sailed through a window of the inn. Aziraphale nearly yelped but Anathema’s hand was over his mouth before a sound could escape. He let out a muffled whimper of protest from behind her hand, so she whispered into his ear.

“We can’t let them know we’re here. We’ve got to go, Az.”

 _Can’t let who know we’re here?_ Aziraphale wondered, frantically. His hand dipped into his pocket to make certain of his compass. 

As though she could read his mind (which, perhaps, she could), Anathema laughed bitterly. 

“Come on, storyteller. Haven’t figured it out yet?”

Aziraphale shook his head, feeling hopelessly stupid.

And as the sound of heavy footsteps became louder just outside and the licks of flames from torches made themselves known outside the windows, Anathema whispered again:

“Pirates.”

_Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies  
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain  
For we’ve received orders for to sail to old England  
And so nevermore shall we see you again_

**Author's Note:**

> I super didn't mean to start another AU WIP, but here we are! Thanks for reading! Away we go!


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